ON THE summer solstice, here was a concert to brighten up the leaden evening sky. What an absolute cracker it was – full of youthful brilliance and energy.

It brought the third Northern Chords festival of chamber music to a rousing finale in the Sage’s Hall Two and, with the announcement of Arts Council backing for the future, the promise of more to come.

Artistic director Jonathan Bloxham, the young Gateshead-born cello virtuoso, has repeatedly thanked his music college friends for their support in his enterprise to “give something back” to his home town.

It was heartening, in this final concert, to see that young North East talent is still emerging. There were joint winners of this year’s Northern Chords Young Musician of the Year, and both 13-year-old cellist Andrew Snell and 12-year-old violinist Gi Dong Park, who go to school in Stockton, Teesside, performed scintillating recitals.

The choir of Central Newcastle High School also gained some experience under the spotlight.

Jonathan Bloxham’s slightly older young friends – all in their 20s – showed why they have picked up so many awards in a programme packed with instrumental and vocal treats.

The singer was Ben Johnson, the Kathleen Ferrier Award-winning young British tenor, who performed a selection of Neapolitan songs, accompanied by Russian pianist Evelyne Berezovsky (whose father Boris, incidentally, is a celebrated pianist).

The Ukrainian pianist Sasha Grynyuk performed Prokfiev’s Piano Sonata No. 7 with aplomb, showing why he has won 10 international competitions.

After the interval, the stage belonged to the strings, with a breathtaking performance of the Mendelssohn Octet in E flat major, the sound seeming to roll from cello (Bloxham and Bart LaFollette) to viola (Rosie Ventris and Tetsuumi Nagata) to violins (Bartosz Woroch, Soh-Yon Kim, Mathieu van Bellen and Agata Darashkaite).

It was a great, riveting stir of emotions and a genuine showcase of virtuosity.